The Ultimate Revenge
by TheVampireMaharet
Summary: Jarod discovers a new meaning for the word torture.
1. Default Chapter

            Disclaimer:  I unfortunately don't own the Pretender.  I guess I'm just not smart enough.  Lol Pleas R&R!  Hope you enjoy!

THE ULTIMATE REVENGE 

                                              CHAPTER 1: BETRAYAL

By InsaneGenius

He couldn't believe it.  He was a few mere minutes away from finally placing the last piece of the puzzle that was his family together.  After five and a half years of searching for ghosts, and truths that didn't seem to exist he was finally going to get them.  As soon as his mother arrived he would ask her the questions he had been wondering about his entire life.  Answers that were only five minutes away.

            He had gotten an anonymous tip a week ago about her current location in Clarksville, TN.  She was working at a Holiday Inn Express not too far from the highway.  He had pre booked a room as soon as he opened his e-mail account, so he finished up his latest pretend as an orchestra teacher in Louisville, KY, and headed down to TN.

  The anticipation was killing him.  According to her work schedule she should be arriving at his room any minute now.  The feelings he had as a child were starting to resurface.  The feeling that even though he was her first son, and he hadn't seen her in over thirty years she would hate him for breaking up the family.  For causing their family to have to go through a torture that no person should ever have to endure.

He stole a glance at his watch, impatience starting to outweigh his nervousness.  He was beginning to get a really bad feeling.  

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," he thought out loud.

The moment he had first laid eyes upon the message he felt as though it were a Centre trap, but he also felt as if it really could be his mother.  And he had to find out.

A barely audible knock interrupted his momentary reverie, and he realized his butterflies were back in full force.  He jumped up off the bed, appearing as if he just sat upon something rather unpleasant, and walked up to the door.  He paused before looking through the peep whole, trying to calm his unsettled nerves.  After a few long moments he finally decided it was time.  She was standing there with a cart full of cleaning materials and extra sheets waiting impatiently.  She was just as beautiful as he remembered from Carthis.  He pulled at the chain and the dead bolt furiously, and ripped open the door.  

"Mom!" He shouted.

A look of shock registered upon her face before she ran towards him and embraced him in a tight hug.  All he could do was smile.  He had wondered what it would feel like to be held by her his entire life.  Now he knew.  He breathed in the smell of her perfume.  He would remember that smell for an eternity.  

"I can't believe it's you, Jarod," she whispered faintly in his ear.  

He pulled back from her so he could study her face fully.  She had a few more wrinkles than he remembered, and her red hair was a little grayer.  

"Why don't we step into my room?" he asked.

"Sure Jarod.  My goodness, this feels so…surreal," she stated in a dream like state, "Are you sure this isn't a dream?"

"I'm positive," he whispered reassuringly as he stepped behind her into his room.  

"Mom, before we start any catching up.  I need to ask you a few things."

"Anything Jarod"

"Who am I?  How old am I?  When's my birthday?" he asked with a clear desperation in his voice, "I've waited far too long for these answers.  I have to know."

"I Never realized how much you wouldn't know," she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

"The Centre fed me nothing but lies my entire life," he stated.  His face was blank with no emotions playing out, but his eyes gave away his pain and anger.

"Your name is Jarod Allen Malone.  You were born on October 18, 1966.  You're thirty-six years old, but Jarod this isn't the time to be discussing this.  I wanted to see you so bad, but I'm afraid I've done something terrible.  I hope you can someday find it in your heart to forgive me.  The Centre is in the building right now.  They've been scoping the place out for weeks now.  I made a deal with them.  A deal I'm greatly regretting right now.  I hope you'll understand.  I know that you can pretend, so pretend to be me one day.  I'm so sorry Jarod!" she exclaimed as tears coursed down her cheeks.

He was aghast.  He had spent his life wondering about their first meeting would  be like.  Afraid that she would scorn him.  Never had he dreamed she would turn him over to the people who had hurt him in every way possible.  He suddenly felt nervous for the second time that day.

" I gotta get out of here," he whispered, gathering his meager possessions.  By the time he had a ready escape plan, and his belongings together it was already too late.  Lyle and half a dozen sweepers were standing in the now open doorway smiling at him.  

"Well, look what the cat drug in.  Nice work Margaret.  Thanks for your cooperation.  So, Jarod are you going to do this the easy way or the hard way?" he asked.

Jarod was petrified by the malicious glint he saw in his eye.  But he would never let him know that.  Panic was starting to set in.  

"I'm never going back there," he said as he masked his terror with his usual calm, cocky grin.  He didn't have time to avoid the syringe that suddenly appeared in his mother's hand.  He tried to fight the sedative, but he couldn't.  He stumbled back into the dresser, and watched as his mother walked over to stand beside Lyle.  Lyle's smirk was the last thing he saw as he fell to the ground.  His world suddenly black.

"I'm sorry you felt that way Jarod.  Thank you for your help Margaret, but you know we don't really need you anymore.  I'm sure you understand," he stated almost boredly.  

She looked at her unconscious son one last time before she felt a searing pain in her chest, and collapsed beside him.  Lyle walked casually over to her body and checked her pulse.

            "She's gone.  Have the cleaners take care of this.  Willy, cuff Jarod and bring him to the car."

                                                He could finally have the ultimate revenge


	2. pain

**DISCLAIMER:  I don't own the pretender characters although I really wish I did.**

**THE ULTIMATE REVENGE**

**CHAPTER 2**

**PAIN**

**BY INSANEGENIUS**

Jarod awoke in complete and utter darkness.  Darkness that was so thick he wondered if perhaps they had blinded him.  After all, you don't need to see to pretend.  He tried to grope around, but he soon realized that his hands were shackled to the wall behind him.  They weren't taking any chances with him.  Memories of what had happened to bring him back to the one place he hated and feared above all flooded through him.  He couldn't believe it.  After all of the searching and trying against all odds to piece his shattered family back together his own mother had betrayed him right over to the hands of the one person he hated more than anybody.  He knew she probably had a reason for doing this to him.  What was it that she had said?  Pretend to be me, and you'll know why.  He would pretend one day.  But not now.  Now, he needed to find a way out of here  before too much harm was inflicted upon him.   

          Suddenly a blinding light assaulted him.  He squinted his eyes trying to block it out.  At least he knew he wasn't blind.  

          "Well, well what have we here.  Our run away Pretender at home at last.  Are you gonna be a good little boy this time, Jarod, and do exactly what daddy tells you?" smirked Lyle.

          " No way," Jarod growled, still trying to adjust to the light.  

          "That's too bad.  You know I hate to do this, but it looks like I'm gonna have to give you a spanking."

          Jarod watched as he and two other sweepers walked over and unlocked his shackles. "Well, no point in making this easy for them," he thought.  He tried to wrench himself out of their grasp, but to no avail.  They were just too strong for him at the moment, and he was still a little groggy from the sedative.  In return, they punched him in the stomach.  As he doubled over they once more chained him to another wall with his back towards them.

          "I hate to tell you this Labrat but this just might hurt a little."

          He jerked his head around in time to see Lyle pull a whip off of a table full of various other objects that he was sure he didn't want to know anything about.  Lyle pulled the whip back and lashed it out at him.  He Struck him at least a dozen times with the whip before deciding that it was enough.  Jarod never screamed out once.  He wouldn't give him that satisfaction.  He knew exactly what Lyle was trying to do to him.  He was trying to make him emotionally and physically off balance in hopes that he would be more willing to perform whatever "project" he had in mind.  Well it wouldn't work.  Lyle would never break him. 

          "I can see those wheels turning in that brain of yours.  Trust me.  There's no way out of this one.  And you know what the best part about this is?  No one else knows.  Not even Raines knows that you and I are down here.  I can do anything I want to you now.  You see, the Triumvirate didn't believe in a few of my persuasive techniques, but what do they know?  Nothing, absolutely nothing at all.  I'll walk away from this with everything I've wanted for a long time.  I bet you're wondering why I want you so badly.   Well, I'll tell you why.  There's a simulation I want you to do for me.  I want you to find out the best way to not only kill but humiliate Miss Parker.  And I'm afraid I just won't accept no for an answer right now," he said while slowly pacing around Jarod's body.  

          He couldn't believe what he had just heard.  Kill Miss Parker?  He could never do that.  Miss Parker had been his bright light in the darkness that was the Centre.  The only person in the world he had shared a truly happy moment with.  Not even with his parents had he shared a moment as happy as his first kiss.  He had always been too afraid of their discovery while around them.  He couldn't bear to see her get hurt.  She was the reason he was still playing games with the Centre.  

          "I'll never help you destroy Miss Parker," he spat.

          "Tsk tsk.  Is that any way to talk to a man with a knife, and every intention upon using it?  Nope, I don't think so.  Do you know what I'm gonna do to you?  I'm gonna cut you open the same way your twisted brother did to me right before I blew his brains out.  Then maybe I'll see what happens when you light a match on someone's arm.  That would be an enjoyable experience for both of us I'm sure."

          The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.  The only thing that kept going through his mind before Lyle began his "persuasive techniques" was the conclusion of a simulation he and Kyle had performed together. "The anticipation of pain is worst than the pain itself."  Of course, it wasn't long before he realized that perhaps he had been a little wrong as a child.

                   **                   ***************

ONE WEEK LATER 

          He had managed to survive through all of Lyle's torture without giving in.  In the past week Lyle had made many deep cuts on his arms, stomach and legs, burnt both arms up, beat him after giving him a drug that doubled pain, as well as having a knife driven through his knee, and he couldn't forget the many other drugs Lyle had given him.  The ones that paralyzed him and caused him to feel a hot pain throughout his entire body.  The torture was bad enough, but then add the fact that he was getting pneumonia.  It was no wonder he wasn't dead.  But he had survived.  He would always survive.  He had a really bad feeling about the things Lyle had in store. 

          He heard a door squeak open from the opposite side of the room.  He knew that it was time for another "session."  The lights came on, as usual, and Lyle gave him that smirk that made him want to tear him from limb to limb.

          " So changed your mind?" he asked malignly.

          " You know I haven't.  That's why that little smirk is on your face right now.  You can't wait to inflict yet more pain on me."

          "You're right, Jarod, I can't. But this time I'm gonna use a didn't type of persuasion.  So tell me.  Which do you want to save more?  You're family or Miss Parker?"

A/N:  Sorry it took so long to post this.  I've had so much homework, and I only have like one or two school days where I'm not staying after for band so I can't seem to find much time to stuff like this!  But anyways, how was it?  You gotta tell me!  Please R&R!


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